Winter Wonderland?

Now I remember why people hate winter - I'm exhausted and it's barely 9am! Egads! We had plenty of warning about the storm, so I was sure to unpack the new power shovel and make note of where the standard ones were hanging in the garage, I took in the archway and Halloween cauldron that were lingering in the yard, but I totally struck out on the patio furniture and now it's staying put - because it's buried!

We must have gotten at least 8" of snow, which is now blowing and drifting at high rates of speed. This makes it hard to critique the first running of the Toro Power Shovel. On one hand, it did crunch through the mounds of snow in my driveway, even the burm left by the plow, but on the other hand I ended up wearing much of it. I can't tell if that was due to the design of the Toro or just the high winds - so I'll reserve judgement until the next go round. I thought it was easy enough to maneuver, though with this deep of snow you do have to go slowly, and you don't have any control over the directionality you blow everything - it's supposed to go straight forward, but I got a ton of it back in my face. I actually had snow-crusted eyelashes, and half a snowman in my hood when I got inside. I kept holding down the wrong button which made things difficult, but it's not that hard. Avoiding the cord required a little maneuvering, but nothing worth complaining about. I got through enough to get my car out in less than an hour - by comparison my neighbor was out shoveling well before me and still out when I left, so I guess it is quicker :) I still had to use the traditional shovel along the line next to the garage door (or I would have blown it all INTO the garage) and some around the edges, but again, I blame the wind for a lot of the control problems. A lot of what I blew away just repositioned itself on other areas of the driveway, but it was enough to get our cars out and my car is EXTREMELY wimpy on snow.

Smart things I did this morning: had the power shovel ready to go, knew where my boots were, found a pair of decent gloves and a hat, put in my contacts, and put on old clothes and waited until afterwards to shower, rather than getting dressed for real.

Not-so-smart things I did this morning: wore my green coat to plow - that's totally soaked, I had to resort to the back up jacket which isn't nearly as cute, and I should have made the hubby snap some pics of me in action but I was tired and it was early. And I was very not cute, other than the nice jacket :)

And then there was the drive, which you can imagine was un-fun and slow...and now here I am sleepy and exhausted and still a little chilly, thinking of all the winter things I'm not ready for yet - slipping on ice, navigating the dummies in my parking lot who can't figure it out without the lines (despite the two clear poles marking the center lines), and getting to do it all again when I get home! Dear wind: if you could stop, that would be excellent!